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Dave Knott writes "The notable science fiction screenwriter and director Dan O'Bannon has died at the age of 63. O'Bannon's career began with a writing credit for John Carpenter's Dark Star and he went on the write many enduring science fiction and horror films such as Blue Thunder, Lifeforce, Screamers and Total Recall. He was also an occasional director, whose credits include The Return Of The Living Dead, the campy horror film that made popular the zombie chant of 'braaiiiinnnsss.' However, he will be best remembered as the writer of Alien, one of the all-time classics of both the science fiction and horror genres. O'Bannon died after a 30 year battle with Crohn's disease and is survived by his wife, Diane, and son, Adam."

Avatar? Pass, that movie looks like a bad video game. Cameron's Aliens and the original terminator and the only films of his I've willingly sat through twice.

I thought Dan O'Bannons PKD adaptations were okay, Total Recall made for entertaining mainstream fare and Screamers I enjoyed (although it's far from being a good film). Alien is an example of what a good script can become when it's given over to someone with talent. It wasn't until the studio saw some of Ridley Scotts pre-production art that they

Avatar may not be a great movie, but using the "this story's been told before" argument is weak. There are only two types of stories in the world, anyway: Man Goes On A Journey, or A Stranger Comes To Town.

Sad. You'd think geeks would be a little more au fait with their storytelling tropes.

There are only two types of stories in the world, anyway: Man Goes On A Journey, or A Stranger Comes To Town.

That's the kind of fatuous crap that unimaginative Hollywood execs say at parties to try to sound clever. The only way you can say "there are only x type of stories" is to vastly oversimplify. Which of those two is Romeo and Juliet, hmmm?

You'd think geeks would know better, with their predilection for speculative fiction, a group of genres that have a knack for breaking out unconventional storylines. What story type is Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker? How about Lovecraft's The Doom that Came to

"I do not like the men on this spaceship. They are uncouth and fail to appreciate my better qualities. I have something of value to contribute to this mission if they would only recognize it. Today over lunch I tried to improve morale and build a sense of camaraderie among the men by holding a humorous, round-robin discussion of the early days of the mission. My overtures were brutally rejected. These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable. Last

(Hamlet = Lion King 1 with a sad ending. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead = Lion King 3 with a sad ending (Indeed Stoppard's characters are certainly less existentially absurd than Timmon and Pumbah). Lion King 4 will doubtless be King Lear, but with the loyal daughter eventually being recognised for her virtues and showing her two sisters the error of their ways).

let's see: 'Starmaker' is to 'Last and First Men' as 'The Mummy 2' is to '

I'm guessing in 20 years, they'll still be teaching Alien in film school while Avatar will only be a footnote.

I've been wrong before. But Alien is such an innovative, creative, masterpiece... it's hard to imagine otherwise. And other than the DOS-looking computer screens, the movie hasn't aged in twenty years.

As a 32 year old fellow sufferer of an extremely serious case of Crohn's Disease, I can tell you that it is a terrible battle: every day I face large amounts of pain and feelings of illness (e.g. my hemoglobin is 70 due to internal bleeding and should be around 170, making it difficult for me to do anything without feeling exhausted - walking up a flight of stairs nearly makes me faint). Crohn's has stripped me of my quality of life: the limitations it places on me make every day a challenge and it has stripped me of many of my dreams. Indeed, it got so bad that, seeing it as my last option, I tried to kill myself last May to escape from the ravages of this disease (I would have been successful, but I was discovered before I died). Right now I wait for surgery to remove 1 m of my intestines, which should help the situation, but euthanasia is still an option I consider to continue and will pursue if the surgery does not improve my quality of life.

Crohn's research is seriously underfunded, and the cause of this disease or its sister disease, Ulcerative Colitis, is not known. Also, the incidence of Crohn's appears to be on the rise to the point where some countries (e.g. Scotland) have deemed it a near epidemic. I urge you, if you like O'Bannon's work, to make a donation to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation in your country:

Should anyone be curious, here's a link to a LiveJournal post where I ask my fellow members of one of LJ's more prominent IBD (inflammatory bowel disease, a collective term for Crohn's, colitis, and a couple other conditions) communities how they describe their Crohn's Disease to other people. I found the answers quite interesting:

My sympathies go out to his family as this hit close to home for me for different reasons.My father also just died (Nov 25th)at 63 in a car accident, my brother also in the same crash. I miss them bothpretty badly. Especially my brother as he was my best friend also. It's something you more get used to than over as the pain becomes a reminder of the love in your heart and the good memories allow you to cope more as time goes on.
My advice is to say the things you'd regret not s

My sweetheart was in a car accident on the 29th of November, but she survived. It's incredibly amazing how quick it all is, and how easy it is to lose someone. The chances of her dying were huge, but she didn't - but she could have. And, just like your brother and father, her life would have been 'just stepped out on', which is an incredibly difficult thing to imagine.

First, Thank You. Second I'm glad to hear you didn't have a tragedy. It's hard, I've spent most of my life, and all of my brothers 35+ years, living in the same house or apartment or at least town as my brother and despite all the stupid sibling fighting and crap early on we were best friends. We've been sharing this apartment about 18 months and would typically chat and hang out for an hour or so at the end of the night. Now I find it hard to get to sleep.
Treas

Hey, I know this is just an online forum, but I feel I gotta say what I'm suprised noone else has said yet : don't kill yourself!
Seriously, I won't claim I know how you feel because I can't possibly fathom what it must be like to suffer that much. But I know there are some people who carry on despite terrible diseases and constant pain, so I know it must be possible somehow. Adaptation takes time, I guess, but I think it's possible.

The point is, you can never know for sure what life has in store. It may

Great post and you're right that people should not kill themselves but I have to say that it sounds like you have never experienced real chronic pain.

It's real easy to say "get over it" when you have never experienced it at its worst (whether it be depression, anxiety, any other chronic pain, etc). I used to think I was open minded but it wasn't until I truly experienced something like this that I realized why people sometimes feel the way they do and make the choices they do.

Everyone should make that decision for himself. Time will certainly bring additional suffering to each one of us, and the majority of people do end up outliving themselves. It is something of a miracle to continue, and not to be discouraged, but it is hardly "most logical."

But I know there are some people who carry on despite terrible diseases and constant pain, so I know it must be possible somehow.

I can't say I know how he feels. Or you feel. Obviously you feel that taking your own life is a bad idea, but - why make the choice illegal? Or rather, why make aiding it illegal.

My dad watched his dad lie hooked up to machines for about a month before passing away. Then a few years later he watched his mom in the same situation. This October he saw his youngest daughter pass away after having spent almost two weeks in an induced coma, hooked up to an ECMO [wikipedia.org] as doctors worked frantically to try to save her from dying of complications from Sharp's Syndrome [wikipedia.org], with I think ten IV-tubes running into her, breathing tube in her mouth, two massively thick tubes handling the blood flow in and out of her body as well as dialysis apparatus.

Sadly I wasn't there when she was finally let go. And my mom is pissed that the first thing my dad said after she was declared dead, was that if he ever ended up in a situation like that, he didn't want to be saved. That's where euthanasia comes into play. Even before then.

Euthanasia can be done in really simple ways as well. Doesn't even have to be expensive, messy or painful. You could go out with a huge sense of euphoria on your lips. I present to you: Nitrogen asphyxiation [wikipedia.org]. All you really need is a tight fitting face mask for ventilation and pure nitrogen. Essentially a slightly modified SCUBA kit.

It takes about 15 seconds for someone to lose conciousness and about 7 minutes until brain death sets in. The organs are, I believe, unharmed, which is a good thing if you plan on being a donor. There is a very minute risk (I think I read 1:1,000,000) of painful side effects, but these will only last until the person is unconscious, again no more than 15 to 20 seconds, and then they'll be at peace.

As for the "what ifs", they're just silly.

What if you turn out to have a child that becomes the new Gandhi?

What if you turn out to have a child that becomes the new Hitler? Are those two lives (yours and your child's) really worth the lives and suffering of millions? If we just go by 'what if', we should never have children, as for every Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, we also end up with a Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot [wikipedia.org] and Papa Doc [wikipedia.org]. For every Norman Borlaug [wikipedia.org], the agronomist and humanitarian who essentially saved a billion people from starvation, we also end up with a Thomas Midgley [wikipedia.org], the man behind such wonderful innovations as leaded engines and CFCs. Both were effective at what they were designed for, sure, but the man essentially made a hole in the ozone layer the size of Antarctica and gave every single child in the world lead poisoning - by himself.

Do you really want to be responsible for the next Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Papa Doc or Thomas Midgley? Those are the risk we take when we think we might be the proud parents of the next Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela or Norman Borlaug.

My point still stands. Euthanasia needs to be legal, and it needs to be a cheap and simple one at that. I'd go for nitrogen asphyxiation.

But I never said it should be illegal, where did you get that from? I think everyone should be free do end their life whenever they want, and should be helped if they're unable to do it for themselves. I'm only saying it's very often a bad idea, and suggesting that there may be some hope. Is that so crazy?

Beyond our purely thoeretical discussion about philosophy and politics, there's someone talking seriously about suicide. For real. I just don't feel like joining the apathetic lack of reaction, the "meh,

I didn't mean to imply that you thought it should be illegal (euthanasia, not suicide). I apologize if I came across like that.

And while you're right - someone's contemplating suicide, and a lot of people are going to go "meh" and shrug or yell "jump you bastard". That's how we humans are.

Sometimes a plea to their future possibilities (like children) are a good way to sway the argument in favour of living. But if they're involuntarily sterile, want kids but aren't allowed to adopt for whatever reasons (mone

Sorry, but that ‘don’t kill yourself” usually comes from people who can’t imagine a situation, where killing yourself actually is the best option.Yes, this is very hard to swallow for everyone of us. Because these situations are very rare. And that’s why we say “don’t kill yourself” in the first place, and why it’s a good idea to use that mindset in general.:)

But, man. There are things that are so horrible, that forcing someone who is in that situation, to live anyway, is just being a heartless selfish bastard, and also is torture.(Please don’t think I’d say that you are like that. I think not “walking past” by closing the window, is a wonderful character trait.)

As someone who already was in situations worse than dead (Not your emo “worse than dead”. Horrible nightmarish seemingly never ending “worse than dead”), I can tell you that the only reason I still exist, is that I KNEW... NOT guessed... KNEW, that this would end some day.If it would be without end, then from a rational standpoint of a healthy thinking human, I would be dead already. And I would be happy with it. I don’t see death as something bad. In many cultures it is celebrated as something good. And we’re just bio-mass with ideas anyway. If we pass those on to *anyone*, then we *literally* continue to exist. Only a part went away. And that’s not bad at all, is it?

But no, please do not misunderstand this as me advocating death (I know you did;). As I said, in general, I fully agree with you and the “don’t kill yourself’.

I just learned, that there are (rare) situations, where that would be delusional, irrational, cruel, and all around bad. Therefore I can’t be that generalizing in my views anymore.:)Hey, I seriously wish that you will never know such situations for yourself.:)And I wish that if you face such a situation, that you aren’t irrationally cruel too.

Agreed. Having Crohn's Disease, I can't imagine being responsible for making another person suffer through this nightmare hell. I would never, ever have biological children and I do feel that Crohnsies that do are acting irresponsibly. I don't disrespect them for it, but I can't help but feel that it's too much of a risk.

Yeah my friend, people fear death. But that’s because they don’t know how bad “life” can be.

Choose the way that, all things considered, is the best for you.When I get in such situations, I stop caring for all the stupid pointless rules of society. Wich at least makes life great in every aspect that’s not wrecked by that big problem.:)

I just wonder, what the cause is, in your case. I looked at the Wikipedia page, and it listed a lot of (to me) unrelated environmental causes. If

I've absolutely considered helminthic therapy, but after investigating, realized that there was no way that I could afford it: the little buggers are freakishly expensive! Given that you have to administer them repeatedly, too, it just wasn't possible for now.

Being a graduate student has certainly been a mixed blessing in terms of my disease: I get the luxury of working from home and setting my hours depending on my health, but the low income certainly affects what treatment options are feasible for me to t

You could instead take a trip to someplace that it is endemic and stomp around barefoot.

I read a story about a guy that did that, then re-infected himself with a sandbox device. Since the eggs only hatch after exiting the body, it makes a self-limiting treatment as long as you work up to the effective dose and don't "OD" the first time around and take some iron supplements.

Example:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19269107 [nih.gov] """The peculiar geographic distribution of inflammatory bowel disease is a puzzle for researchers. A low vitamin D status has now been linked to several Th1-mediated autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, with the strongest eviden

I'm going to read your post in more detail in a moment (and thank you for taking the time and effort to put all of that information together for me - it's very much appreciated), but having skimmed it, I just wanted to point out that some researchers now are actually hypothesizing that Crohn's may be caused or exacerbated by an excess of Vitamin D, or an inability to eliminate it, or something along those lines (I can't recall exactly).

In any case, my Crohn's is almost always much worse in the summer, usual

Dr. John Cannell, MD, who runs the Vitamin D web site, talks about how having just a little vitamin D can allow you immune system to get going, but you need enough vitamin D for your immune system to be able to shut itself down properly. For example:http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/h1n1-flu-and-vitamin-d.shtml [vitamindcouncil.org] "In the macrophage, the presence of vitamin D also appears to suppress the pro-inflammatory cytokines. Thus, vitamin D appears to both enhance the local capacity of the epitheli

One other related item in the news today, but not on Vitamin D:http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-celiac21-2009dec21,0,5395819.story [latimes.com] """Researchers at the Brisbane Princess Alexandra Hospital in Queensland, Australia, tested the effects of hookworm inoculation on 20 patients with celiac disease to see if it would blunt the immune response to gluten. In addition to hoping to provide relief for celiac patients, the researchers want to learn if this could be an effective therapy for inf

What part of your intestines is malfunctioning? A person can lead a nearly normal life without a colon (large intestines). They just have to go to the bathroom in a special way. But that's better than being tethered to a bathroom by a tantrum-throwing colon. I suspect a person can also lose a big chunk of small intestine before they're any worse than having that chunk misbehaving.

I went for six months without using my colon after surgery for colon cancer. After healing it was reconnected minus eighteen inch

Unfortunately, it's throughout my intestines: right now the problem is predominantly in the small intestine just above the terminal ileum, so I"m looking at resections (60 cm of small intestine need to be removed, and 30 cm of the colon).

I'm glad to hear that a colectomy worked for you. I wish that my Crohn's wasn't so all over the place so that that would be an option. I'd even consider total parenteral nutrition if my doctor would go for it, but he's quite against it.

I'm also on Remicade (infliximab), at a much higher than standard dosage (700 mg / 6 weeks). It has made a huge difference in my life: prior to starting it, I spent six months in bed with a near constant fever of 102-104F, weight loss of 60 lbs, night sweats, severe malnutrition, 20-30 bowel movements per day, vomiting, etc. About ten minutes after my first administration, for the first time in six months, I didn't have a fever.

Unfortunately, though, my Crohn's is very aggressive, and Remicade just isn't enough: colonoscopies demonstrate significant areas of active disease throughout my intestines. I'm still substantially ill and my quality of life, while much better, is still extremely low compared to a normal person. Part of the issue is that I have extreme thickening of 60 cm of small intestine just above the terminal ileum, and 30 cm of large intestine in the descending / sigmoid colon, so I get a lot of intestinal blockages (usually one partial blockage per day, sometimes more). Because of this, food is quite terrifying for me, and there are few foods I can eat that don't seem to affect me (right now my diet is limited to four foods that seem to be completely safe). This sucks, because I'm actually a huge foodie and absolutely adore food: it's my main passion in life and has been for many years. Indeed, at one point, I nearly left my PhD CS program to pursue culinary school. Thank goodness I didn't, as someone with a bowel disease like Crohn's would have many challenges in such a career.

Right now I'm receiving monthly blood transfusions to try to increase my hemoglobin levels and general nutrition, and waiting for surgery. Unfortunately, the wait time for my surgeon is 6-9 months (*sigh*... Canadian health care system is just too slow). My blockages have been getting progressively worse, so I'm not sure that I will be able to make it that long.

Thank goodness I was able to find a family doctor willing to prescribe pain medication. I would most certainly have killed myself by now had it not been for that. This seems to be a huge problem, though, for Crohn's sufferers: many people simply can't find doctors willing to help them manage their pain. When I moved a year ago, one of the GPs I visited in my attempts to find a new doctor, upon hearing my list of medications (which is extensive: I also take Cipro, Pentasa, Oxycontin, and Percocet for my Crohn's in addition to other medications for other health problems), basically spent 15 minutes telling me off and accusing me of being a junky who was trying to use him to feed my addiction. I was too sick at the time to argue or fight back, but I left in tears (and I'm not known to have a propensity for crying), and it was a terrible experience and made me feel absolutely horrible.

The demonization of opioids and the stigmas attached to them make it extremely difficult for one to seek adequate pain management. This is even more troubling because when one is in pain, it is already difficult to muster up the strength to perform basic daily tasks, let alone go through the process of interviewing doctors and advocating for yourself to find someone who will treat you properly. It seems that O'Bannon was well acquainted with this, based on the fact that, according to the article, he was working on a screenplay called "The Pain Clinic".

I'm so glad to hear that Remicade is working well for you, and I hope that that continues! Best of luck!

The demonization of opioids and the stigmas attached to them make it extremely difficult for one to seek adequate pain management. This is even more troubling because when one is in pain, it is already difficult to muster up the strength to perform basic daily tasks, let alone go through the process of interviewing doctors and advocating for yourself to find someone who will treat you properly. It seems that O'Bannon was well acquainted with this, based on the fact that, according to the article, he was working on a screenplay called "The Pain Clinic".

There was an article in the New York Times magazine about this -- link here. [nytimes.com] If you have personal experience, maybe you're already familiar with it; I only mention it because I read it recently and thought it raised really important and interesting issues. Maybe it could be useful for people who are struggling with this problem.

I never really knew much about Crohn's disease until your posts in this thread. Just never encountered it before, I guess.

I'll look into donating a bit of my student budgeted cash to the CCFC as you referenced it. I can easily forgo the occasional binge drinking session for your sake, so the relatively tiny amount I spend on beer / liquor will most appropriately go to that. It'll be easier on my stomach, for one... and perhaps a bit on my conscience, with a bit of empathy on the side.

My doctor currently has me on a different immune suppressor as well as collazide and a small dose (30mg or so a week) of prednisolone for my relatively mild case (thank your deity of choice) of crohns, its dealing with it quite well, however the main side effect of the damn steroid is rapid weight gain, I am struggling constantly to maintain my body weight (without that particular drug I would be dropping about a kilo a fortnight).

Might ask my specialist if he could consider that drug in my case, would be d

Remicade (infliximab) and Humira (adalimumab) are specific immunosuppressants: they only inhibit TNF-alpha (tumor necrosis factor alpha). For this reason, they're better than the traditional immunosuppressants in the treatment of Crohn's, and tend to have fewer side effects. The problem is that they do have some possible side effects that are quite terrifying (highly increased risk of some types of cancer, for example), and given that Remicade is made from mouse proteins, it can cause severe allergic reacti

Immunosuppressants are dangerous. I am not eligible for Remicade because I exhibited a negative reaction to a related immunosuppressant. It put me in the hospital for a week of round the clock infusions of Dilaudid to manage the pain. Dilaudid is a trade name for the compound that was introduced to replace Heroin in clinical settings.

It was a nightmare come to life. I had IV's coming out of all sorts of places, and my left arm alone was drilled top to bottom, front and back with different bore sizes. I

Oi... I'm sorry to hear you had such a wildly negative reaction to an immunosuppressant, and glad to hear that you survived. Messing with the immune system is scary enough in theory, and even more so in practice. I was so terrified for my first Remicade infusion that it took me a couple of milligrams of Xanax and some oxycodone just to be able to walk into the hospital without freezing up with a horrible panic attack. My friend, who began Remicade two days after me, had a horrible reaction that necessitated

Might just bug the specialist about getting off the steroid, maybe try to up the dose of the immune sup, I seem to only be getting the "photo sensitivity" side effect so far from that, and a good pair of sun glasses and long sleeved shirts solves that minor problem (yeah, was on weekly blood tests for 12mths when he first started me on it, so the insides are dealing well with it).

Actually that's not the "right" way to do it. There is too much of a chance that it won't kill you. Also, consider the poor people that have to clean up after you and consider the aftermath your family would have to be looking at.

There are painless, humane and 100% guaranteed ways to do it. I won't post the best method but there is a description on Wikipedia and I'm sure a simple search for assisted suicide will provide enough information.

I was interested in LDN myself, but of course (and it bears mentioning), if you're on opiates, you cannot do LDN without first getting off of them.

Glad to hear you've had success with LDN! I know maybe three people who have tried it. One person had mixed results, and I'm not sure about the other two, as I haven't spoken to them in awhile. I believe that one of them was having some initial promising reduction in symptoms, though.

I wondered the same thing. Alien is by far my favourite sci-fi movie series, and Farscape is by far my favourite sci-fi TV series, and it would make perfect sense for the two of them to be tied together in such a way.

O'Bannon not only wrote Dark Star, he plays Sgt. Pinback in the movie.

Co-wrote. With John Carpenter.

O'Bannon also was film editor. And production designer. And supervisor of visual special effects, for which he got a first place award in 1975 from the forerunner of the Saturn Awards.

Looks like a lot of work for one person, and perhaps it was. But keep in mind this was two guys working on a 45 minute student project up until someone paid them US$60k to expand it out to feature length. And as far as I can tell (and I'm another who watches this movie yearly or so) the difference between the original feature length and the much later 'dirctor's cut' is Doolittle's little musical bottle recital.

The focus of the student version was on the 'beach ball' alien sequence, which was comedic. Changing the theme of it to horror for the feature length without losing the impact showed a great deal of talent in both writers. A fellow USC grad's student film helped launch is career also, the final escape sequence of George Lucas's THX 1138. And just to help differentiate between success and academic success, Stephen Spielberg was also a USC grad school student, but didn't finish there due to a C average. (In fact he didn't finish until 2002 at California State University, Long Beach, having received an honorary degree from USC in 1994 and becoming a trustee there in 1996).

Just guessing based on the preponderance of SF work in O'Bannon's IMDB entry, I suspect he rather than Carpenter was the one who adapted Ray Bradbury's short story Kaleidoscope from The Illustrated Man as the ending sequence, with one astronaut carried off by some semi-mystical asteroids, the other ending in a firey re-entry. That adaptation is referenced in the Dark Star Wikipedia entry. Not mentioned anywhere but of too great similarity to ignore are Bomb 20's final act, having determined that he is alone in the universe to exclaim "Let there be light" (vs. Asimov's "The Last Question") and the post-mortem consciousness of the commander afforded by his cryogenic preservation (vs. Larry Niven's "Wait It Out"). I also used to think Talby's obsession with staying in the observation chair wasn't a phobia having to do with the commander's death, but was taken from another story which included mental changes verging on madness if one watched too much empty space, but I can't recall which one, and there's an awful lot of those.

BTW, Benson Arizona MP3 and lyrics are available at SF author Robert Sawyer's web site.

I just did a rewatch of Alien last week. It's one of those movies I revisit once every year or so, like Bladerunner. Bladerunner was said even by W. Gibson to be widely influential across a swath of cultural fields, but I think the artwork in Alien to have had a more lasting cultural wide influence. The artwork in Alien underlies and embues the artwork of almost every FPS game with a science fiction setting. The narrow, steam filled, water dripping innards of a space ship's mechanical works and bays hiding the alien threat was done best in Alien.

You understand that Dan O'Bannon wrote the movie, right? He was the writer, not the art director. This article is about Dan O'Bannon, not your thoughts about the lasting appeal of the art direction in Alien.

The artwork in Alien underlies and embues the artwork of almost every FPS game with a science fiction setting. The narrow, steam filled, water dripping innards of a space ship's mechanical works and bays hiding the alien threat was done best in Alien.

Indeed, the AvP series of games uses that artwork almost exclusively. It's like he was prescient.

It works the other way, too. Alien shows clear signs of influence by the Ixtl sequence in A.E. Van Vogt's classic "Voyage of the Space Beagle." A book that also presaged Star Trek -- being an episodic novel about a crew of humans on board an exploratory vessel, travelling out into the stars for the first time and facing strange alien worlds and civilizations.

It also has the two greatest Bug-Eyed-Monsters in SF history, the aforementioned Ixtl, and the panther-like Coeurl.
Highly recommended.

The work he did on Alien is amazing. I think it remains the best-written screenplay I've ever seen. Not so much about the story, but the way in which it is written.

If anyone out there is interested in writing for the screen, find a copy of Alien and study it. It's a minimalist masterpiece, only the absolutely necessary words are there to describe scenes. That sounds simple and obvious, but it's really very rare indeed. Most screenwriters tend to add too much description and direction.

I've got alot of love for Return of the Living Dead. If you read the IMDB for it, it actually gets good ratings, despite being campy.

First Movie with Running Zombies? Check

Tarman? Check

Running around naked in a cemetary? Check

BBBRRRRAAAAAAIIIINNNNSSSSS and zombies that eat them? Check

A movie where every line is a memorable quote? Check

Character names like Trash, Scuz and Suicide? Check

Go BUY it from FYE, Amazon, or KMart now. It's more funny than it is scary, but that doesn't detract from it still being a good movie. Alot of zombie movie lovers keep a place in their heart for this movie, even though it isn't a true George Romero movie.

I second this motion. I saw it at the movies and it was an absolute scream. Great soundtrack, great character actors (James Karen, Clu Gulager, Don Calfa) hilarious dialogue ("Send... more... paramedics.", "It hurts... to be dead."), perfect ending. Reagan was president and we were sure he was going to start WWIII...

A good friend did a Christmas dinner with O'Bannon and his wife. They invited a few friends to join them. James Karen from Return of the Living Dead was there. Sadly my friend died a year or two later from a drunk driver so I never saw O'Bannon again. He was quiet and kept to himself. He seemed to like having the people around but he kept disappearing into the kitchen while everyone else sat around and talked. I still remember a story my friend told me back in the late 70s. He said Dan was around when they put the actor in the Alien suit the first time. Geiger hadn't built a rubber suit before and Dan said he bet it would rip in three steps. He later admitted he was wrong, it ripped in two steps. My friend used to tell me about the lawsuit Dan had with 20th over alien. They were claiming Alien lost money. He finally won and received a settlement but it was better than ten years later. I think he largely retired after that. Probably due to health. I tried back in the 80s to get Vestron, long dead company, to produce his script "They Bite". A fun little script and a favorite among animators. Ask any old time animation fan about the Collie Beetles. I got Vestron in touch with O'Bannon but I think they had a string of flops by then and they weren't willing to risk the money on a big stop motion film. The script never did get produced although I take it he retitled it "Omnivore" years ago. I'm not sure how many unproduced scripts he had but that one dated to the late 70s.

I just realized another O'Bannon story. I can actually tell this one now. Anyone hear of Dead and Buried? O'Bannon's name was on it with Ron Shussett for screenplay. Well the first time O'Bannon heard about it was when he opened a newspaper and saw the ad for the film with his name on it. He calls up Ron saying, Ron what's up with this Dead and Buried film? Ron says I'll give you 20 grand, I can't remember the actual amount, if you don't say anything. Dan just says "Okay" and that was the last they said of it. Ron had been adding Dan's name to scripts to give them more weight but it was the first one he sold. Both my friend and Dan are gone now so it's safe to tell. Just a little Hollywood backstory.

Come on, what's the point in posting something like this? You're just wasting our time making us read this crap. I'm wasting my time replying. And others will waste their time reading my reply. And so on...

Every time a big sci-fi movie comes out, Harlan Ellison and a hundred other sci-fi hack writers come out of the woodwork claiming "Hey this has a spaceship with a crew in it, and MY story had a spaceship with a crew in it...so you've obviously ripped me off!" and proceeds to sue. And often, the studio just settles with said hacks for $20 in gift certificates--just to avoid the hassle of the lawsuit. Harlan Ellison in particular has turned this into an artform--making way more from lawsuits (and threats of l